Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Jacob has always felt that his life was just ordinary, especially compared to the stories he heard from his grandfather about the halcyon days and Peculiar children during World War II. But these strange stories are just stories though, right ? After the traumatic death of his Grandfather, Jacob begins to see things-- things that can't possibly be real.Soon, Jacob finds himself traveling to the the small island of Carinholm, Wales, the place of his Grandfather's stories, were he discovers past and present may not be that far apart at all.In this novel. a picture really is worth one thousand words ! This book features 50 real vintage photographs used to help tell the story. Some of the photos are from Riggs' personal collection some from other collectors. From what I understand putting images in books can be quite pricey and I love that Quirk took the risk and it certainly paid off with this book being a NYT bestseller.The images used to help tell the story were collected at flea markets, yard sales etc and the idea of using the mismatched, unknown (dare I say peculiar) images gives the book a touch of the surreal. However at times the images hurt the book.There would be a description of an image that you know is going to be on the next page and the description felt a little forced, and I wonder how the book would stand without them.I don't want to give to much away about the story, but what I really enjoyed about this book was its great sense of setting. Jacob gets a real feel for the present and past (wink wink) of what island life can be like. I'm starting to realize I kind of have a thing for books that takes places on small (non-tropical) islandslikeBurn for Burnor We Were Liars.Riggs has created a world with danger, hope and mischievousness. His mythology is fun and so solid I thought it was based on something real. This novel is an origin story, so I'm curious to see what Jacob and his new found friends get up to in the sequel. Since the photos were hit or miss for me (I'll admit some of them were a bit to odd for me) I will probably check out the audiobook of Hollow City, which is done by a Books and Sensibility favorite, Kirby Heyborne.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A few months ago I read Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Summer Princeas my starting point to supporting the We Need Diverse Books campaign and to start including more diverse books in our blog. The Summer Prince started out kind of rocky for me, but morphed into an intricate, creative poignant dystopian tale. When I saw Johnson's next book on NetGalley I jumped at the chance to review it.In the political, power hungry world of Washington D.C. Our main character 18-year-old Emily Bird occupies a curious space as a black upper class teen in D.C. society. Bird grits her teeth and bares it as her mother, who raised herself up from the lower income Northeast DC neighborhood, pushes Bird to join the Ivy league crowd whether she wants to or not. But when Emily loses hours of memories right before a pandemic flu turns D.C into a quarantine zone, she becomes a girl of her own making. With the help of Coffee, the son of a Brazilian diplomat and new friends, they will uncover her memories and who is trying to keep her from remembering.

There are a lot of things to love about this novel. The way Johnson looks at race and class is something I haven't seen in literature. Usually, the black student at an elite private school is on a scholarship or something, but in this case Bird's family is just as wealthy as any other family. She examines this culture of upper class black students which I found unique.

Johnson's portrayal of Bird's character evolution was perfect. In the beginning she is trapped by her mother's own ambition and slowly she learn to free herself with her own transformation. In the book Bird kind of fights back and forth between going by the name Emily and going by the name Bird (which her love interest, Coffee calls her first) and you can feel her fighting between these two personalities and once she decides who she is going to be the book gets really interesting.

However, the conceit of this novel's plot was really hard for me to believe. Johnson made it seem like there are high stakes involved in what Emily had been made to forget but when it's finally revealed it doesn't seem all that important. As I got to the end, I was reading less for the plot and more for the characters and their relationships.

I think when authors want to know how to write authentic black female characters this is a book to look at, but to remember it’s also only one side of a much more complex story. Johnson took her setting and brought it to life and made me believe in this girl caught up in two worlds. It takes me a while, but once she gets a story rolling, Alaya Dawn Johnson is amazing,